


Reconstruction

by rollingplains



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 05:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rollingplains/pseuds/rollingplains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War is only a short-term fix for the economy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reconstruction

**Author's Note:**

> (only watched the movie once so details may be somewhat fuzzy. un-beta-ed)

After a brief rally, the economy plunges.

Sure, there’s renewed optimism, but not enough to offset the fact that a very large percentage of the global population was employed in kaiju disaster related industries.

Private defense, infrastructure, insurance, action figures, the list goes on. And not to mention the massive resources devoted to public security.

He hangs around for a while, watching others grapple with _‘what now?_ ’ as the hangar scales back to a skeleton crew, and the eggheads return to their tenured positions at Oxford.

He doesn’t have a lot of options himself, although he knows he’s generated enough goodwill to be re-employed by national defense. But there are other factors he had to consider before coming to a decision. And someone he needs to talk to.

He knows where he’ll find her. The dormitory still houses a majority of the workers previously employed at the hangar, kind of a holding facility while the government decides what to do with them. Unlike everyone else, she’s set for life by virtue of her adoptive father, who no doubt will have monuments erected and schools named in his honour all over the world in the following years.

No, she’s just here because this is her home. She probably grew up in this miserable shithole.

He’s tried to give her space to grieve on her own, hoping she’d seek him out if she needed him ( _just across the hall_ ). And now weeks had passed and he can’t wait any longer so he raps on her door impatiently because he just has to see her.

"Raleigh Becket," she greets him, in her accented lilt when she opens the door. “I thought you would have gone home by now."

 _How?_ he wants to ask. _3 weeks ago, we saved the motherfucking world together. You were in my head. I was in yours. You don’t just leave that kind of thing behind._

"I’ve been thinking about it," he says instead. “The Department of Defense has been in touch. I think they have something for me."

She doesn’t hesitate. “You should take it. Your skills and experience will be wasted otherwise."

"Come with me," he says. “Or not," he quickly adds, after seeing her stricken expression. He had already decided he wasn’t going anywhere without her. “We’ll stay here. I’ll request an indefinite post in Hong Kong."

She raises her eyebrows. “What if I want to move back to Japan?"

"Then you move back to Japan. And I come with you."

She still looks incredulous. “And you would move across the world for someone you don’t know?"

"No," he corrects her. “I would move across the world for you."

She sighs. “Raleigh, we met at a very-" and here she struggles with finding the right word "- _dramatic_ time. The world was a very different place a few weeks ago."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Raleigh Becket," she says and he wonders why she’s referring to him by his full name, “I am honoured to have served alongside you. We avenged my family, and your brother, and you sealed the portal. It was you, no one else could have done it. But drifting can create an artificial bond between two individuals that would not have arisen naturally. You should not feel any obligation in respect to me."

"What I feel is not obligation," he says quietly.

She smiles skeptically. “If I had walked by you in Alaska, you would not have given me a second look."

"Maybe not," he concedes. “But after you handed my ass to me, there could be no one else."

She only looks a little pleased with herself. “Sorry," she says, and despite her expression, he doesn’t doubt her sincerity.

"Don’t apologize," he says. “If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here right now. We would have never been matched up, we would have never sealed the portal, we’d all be dead or on our way. And I might have just been enough of an idiot to let you slip out of my life as quickly as you slipped in."

She doesn’t look at him. “The attachment you feel to me is a side effect of the drift."

"No," he says. “The drift does not manufacture feelings out of thin air. What it did was exacerbate what was already there. You were in my head. _You know what I was thinking_."

She’s silent for a long time and he feels like he’s been punched in the gut. “If you want to move on without me," he says finally, “I’ll respect that," and he gets up to leave. He stops at the door where she’s sitting, because he can’t just leave it at this, he didn’t go to hell and back for this, but she had already been through hell herself and he’s not going to be the asshole that makes it any worse for her. He smiles softly at her, and strokes her cheek. “Be good, ok?"

She grabs his hand before he can take it away, and turns her face to kiss his palm before looking up at him. “I’m going to Sydney. They offered me a research position on their reconstruction panel. There’s nothing for me here so I already said yes. And I didn’t think you’d come with me. There’s nothing for you there."

He can’t help it. He kisses her, hard. She responds more languidly, dragging her lips along his until he can’t breathe. It’s strange and out of sync, but he doesn’t care.

"I’ll figure it out."


End file.
